Mask of Self
by katyrye
Summary: Grillows!


The day was crisp and cool for June. So cool in fact, Catherine Willows had to wear a sweater and wrap her scarf around her throat. She was supposed to be enjoying a day off, but here she was working a 4-19 beside the beautiful Lake Tahoe. She could see the crime scene just below, it was a steep drop from the road so she and Nick Stokes walked carefully. In her opinion, the heavy silver cases didn't make it any easier. The steep decline was muddy from the previous heavy rain, making footholds hard to find.

"What do we have?" Catherine asked Captain Jim Brass.

"It's unbelievable, Cath," Brass replied. "It's like something out of a book or a movie. The victim is Shannon Andrews, age 33. She has a son at home and works part time at a used book store. She had been missing for a few weeks and her face has been all over the news."

Catherine nodded. "It's horrible that a woman who works so hard has to meet a terrible fate," she said. "But can you give me a little more detail about the crime scene?"

"The body was found by a group of hikers that had stopped for a rest. It was wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag and was sealed with plastic ties. The most horrible part is that the victim had her face removed," Brass said as he gagged a little.

If there was one thing about this job, you never got used to the violence that people were capable of. In a way it was like a movie you hated. You can watch it over and over, and it would still effect you the same way. You would always hate it and you would always want to resist putting it in the DVD player. This Shannon Andrews was a mother. She was probably someone who put _Bambi_ in her DVD player instead of _Silence of the Lambs._ Now here she laid, with her face removed like a victim of Hannibal the Cannibal.

"Since the body was in the lake, we don't know where the original crime took place," Catherine pointed out.

She lifted her camera and snapped a few photos of the body and its position. It was a fact that one could never have enough photos.

Brass agreed. "Yes, but from the way she is dressed, you can tell she wasn't going camping," he said.

Catherine looked at the faceless body. It had started to decompose and it was bloated from being in the water for so long. Before she died, Shannon Andrews had put on a pair of slacks and a button-up dress shirt. She wore no shoes and she had one earring missing.

"The only thing we can really do is get her back to the lab and process this garbage bag. I doubt there will be anything useful on it, but you can hope," Nick said.

Catherine nodded. "With this job, you learn not to hope for much," she said as she carefully made her way back to the Explorer.

0~0

He watched them. From his place in the woods, in a tree so no one could see, he watched them work. He had been listening to his scanner when he had heard about the discovered body by the lake, and he knew it had been her. It had been fun hunting Shannon Andrews, but this was a close call. He attributed it to his own carelessness, and not some random act of God. Shannon had been a screamer and he needed to get rid of her before he was discovered. So after he had had his fun hunting her, he removed her face and showed it to her. Shannon hadn't been his first. He was always careful when he chose his victims. He always brought them in from out of town. They were always young and beautiful, but not so much as to have an active social life. Whenever he got the urge to hunt, he drove around. He resisted the urge until it became too powerful, and then he chose his victim. He had hunted in northern California and San Francisco and even New Mexico, but he always brought them back to the desert. In the desert, a human could scream and no one would be able to hear you. Carelessly, he had hunted Shannon near Lake Tahoe, and now he was realizing his mistake. He watched as the two investigators talked, a man and a woman. Hunting men wasn't his style and was unsatisfying, so the man didn't interest him. The woman, on the other hand, was tall and slender. Her reddish-blonde hair blew in the wind and he could almost smell it. She looked mature, but not too old for his taste. Quickly, he dismissed all thought of her, for hunting law enforcement was not something he did.

0~0

"I remember seeing her face on television," Doc Robbins said. "It's a shame she was found like this."

Catherine thought it was too, but she didn't say so. "Can you tell us anything?" she asked.

"No sign of sexual trauma," Doc Robbins said. "Ms. Andrews was shot twice, once in the right shoulder and once in the hip. The bullets penetrated through the back and went all the way through, so I don't have a bullet for you. What I can tell you is that I believe she was shot in the shoulder first."

"And why is that?" Catherine asked.

"Because the second shot shattered her hip bone and it would-"

"It would have been impossible to walk," Catherine finished.

"I found tiny scratches along her arms, legs, and face. They looked like needle marks at first glance, but I ran a TOX-screen and her blood came back negative for any controlled substances," Doc Robbins said.

Catherine closed her eyes and thought about Shannon Andrews. "Our killer obviously didn't want her to walk away. I think she was running from him," she said.

As she spoke, the door to the autopsy room opened and Gil Grissom walked in. Catherine focused her attention back to the body and did not look at him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked more rudely than she should have.

"I put Nick on an arson in the Henderson, you get me," Grissom said with pride.

Catherine wasn't impressed, so she filled him in on her findings. "I believe she was running from someone and these scratches and scrapes are from trees and twigs," she explained.

"I can tell you that the cause of death was not these gunshots, but she bled out. Probably because her face was peeled off and with accurate precision," Doc Robbins said.

Catherine bent closer to where the victims face should be. "I think she was alive to see her own face removed," she said.

Gil nodded. "Did you find any splinters?" he asked Doc Robbins.

"Yes I did," Doc Robbins said. "I found two in the calves and one in her arm."

He handed the bottle to Grissom and he shook them around. He cocked his head to the side and Catherine thought he was doing an excellent impression of a turkey.

"I'm not dendrologist, but I know one," Grissom said with satisfaction.

Catherine took off her rubber glove and let it snap. "Of course you do," she said.

On her way out she tossed them in the trash. She walked down the hall, hands in pockets, until she reached the restroom. She braced her hands on the porcelain sink and looked at her own face, glad that it was still attached. She took off the blue scrubs and tossed them in the trash. The scrubs nowadays were paper and were annoying. On her way out she bumped into Grissom, who was standing just outside the door.

"Sorry," she said as she tried to step around him.

Grissom put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. His cool blue ones always had a way of making her feel small.

"What did I do now?" he asked, using his annoyed voice.

Catherine shrugged him off. "This isn't the place for this. I'll see you back at the lab," she said as she walked towards the exit.

0~0

Back in the car, Catherine was able to think privately. She thought that it was always easier to think when you were alone and not have people looking at you. She thought about the family Shannon Andrews left behind, and she thought about her last moments. If she had been running from some unknown assailant, like Catherine thought, then her last moments were horrifying.

Her ringing cell phone pulled her from her thoughts. She groped for it and flipped it open. "Willows," she said.

"Catherine, Gil just told me you aren't coming in," Conrad Ecklie said.

Catherine wrinkled her forehead and pulled her head back. "I'm on my way now," she said.

Catherine looked in her rear-view mirror and caught a glimpse of a black Sedan. It had extra antenna, like a patrol car, and the windows were tinted.

"He just called and said you need a personal day," Ecklie explained. "Look, I don't know what's going on between you two, but it doesn't look right if your supervisor calls in a day off for you. Besides, you already _had_ the day off,"

Catherine laughed a little laugh. "Thanks," she said.

"Are you coming in?" Ecklie asked.

"I'm on my way," she replied.

After Catherine had hung up, she saw Grissom's car driving past. She clenched her teeth and stepped on the accelerator, roaring past him. She pulled into a parking lot and he followed. She thought he had a lot of nerve calling a day off in for her after he was the one who asked her to come in.

Grissom was out of his car first. "Road rage is a killer," he said.

"Why are you doing this to me? Are you trying to confuse me?" she asked.

Grissom scratched his beard. "I just thought you needed a break," he said.

The breeze blew Catherine's hair in front of her eyes and she pushed it back. "I don't need one. I would appreciate it if you didn't do that again," she said.

Grissom nodded. "Fine. You just look tired and I brought you in on a day off and now you don't want it," he said.

Catherine let her head thump on the steering wheel and the horn beeped. Grissom squatted down until he was level with her.

"Look, I'm trying," he said. "I'm not good at this. Just want you to tell me what's wrong and let me fix it."

"I don't know," Catherine said honestly. "I am annoyed at everything. I guess I just…"

In all honesty, she didn't exactly know what she was annoyed at. She wanted to pin it on Mother Nature and the curse of womanhood, but that would be an easy way out. Grissom was a good man and was very good to her.

"I know it isn't fair to do this, but I just want to be left alone. I was alright with Nick working with me, but with you it's like I have to behave. That gets to me sometimes," she said.

Grissom nodded. "So you don't want your supervisor breathing down your neck," he said.

Catherine tried to come up with a better excuse, but what he said summed it up. "Sorry," she offered.

"It's fine," he said. "I think the rest of the team feels the same sometimes. I just thought you were different."

"Gil," she said. "I am different. We have something the others don't have. Well, something I _hope_ you and the others don't have. Everyone needs some breathing room. Don't you want to be able to hear your own thoughts sometimes?"

"Well, I am always alone in my office. I guess you never really have alone time," he said.

Catherine shook her head. "I guess not," she said.

"Then go take your day off. I'll come by later, but if you want to be alone then just call me. You have changed a lot since we started going together and I don't want to see you have a breakdown," he said.

Catherine leaned over and kissed him. It wasn't as passionate as they usually were, but enough so to let him know she cared about him. She always relished the feel of his beard on her face and the way he smelled.

"Okay," she agreed.

0~0

On an impulse, he had followed the woman investigator. He had his laptop in the car with him and when the woman stopped for a light, he ran her license plate through the police database. Of course the software wasn't legal, but who would know?

"Catherine Willows," he said as he read.

The red head's name was Catherine Willows. She lived nearby in a neighborhood that was usually reserved for people who made a handsome paycheck. He followed her a little more and watched as she turned into her driveway. He pulled along the shoulder and watched as she keyed into her house.


End file.
